Easier to just join the channel here.
If anyone is interested. We have had a lot of success so far in decoding the protocol.
With water heaters we have been able to set temperatures and change modes with an rs485 connection including reading various sensors and pulling it into home assistant.
It would be great to get more people involved especially those with econet HVAC systems as I am currently the only one.
To join the discussion please join the discord.
Can you show the rs485 connection for rheem water heater? I presume wifi is not possible at the moment ?
You need an rj11 cable. What type of water heater do you have?
@Danny2100 the discord invite doesn’t work (at least for me) – get an invalid or expired error. Interested in following on this and helping if I can. I have a Rheem Performance Platinum 9.5 GPM Nat Gas tankless water heater w/ the WiFi module, etc.
It seems it expires. Just figured out I can set it to never expire.
Danny2100, where are you on the project to interface with Rheems water heater. I would be interested in that effort…
The water heater is completely done for tankless gas and heatpump water heaters.
Join the discord for more questions/assistance with set-up.
Well ain’t that cool! Great job! I tried to join the discord link and get a invalid invite - possibly expired. I read the README on the github link so mode switching is not supported - meaning - I assume - that you can’t change from heat pump to electric to off, etc. Is that a function that can be added at some point? The current rheems github integration works pretty good - but I have found no way to turn it off (Rheems) in a way that it does not turn itself back on (in electric mode) when the temp falls below some point. If you select OFF via the integration you see the unit (per the app) show OFF and DISABLED. And like I said when the water temp gets below some point it turns the electric strips on and follows whatever the last temp setting was. If you set it to OFF via the app it stays off. For my set up that a problem. I only heat water during the hottest part of the afternoon - and depend on the reservoir of hot water to last until the next day (don’t have children for this kind of use)…
Mode switching is supported the readme is outdated. Including switching to vacation mode.
Here’s a new link.
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interested in this… looking for install pictures.
anyone have some avail?
I have now implemented this and it is working great. So much data is available that I always thought could be available from the EcoNet interface.
Don’t want to drag another power supply into the picture? I have an add on version of the EcoNet Rheem electric hot water heater, so I do not know if this applies to others that have the EcoNet interface inbuilt. There is on pin 6 of the RJ-11/12 connector a +5V power supply. By using a short USB-C charging cable with the USB-A end removed, I soldered the positive (red) wire to the RJ-11/12 cable pin 6 with the negative (black) cable attached to the RS-485 terminal block GND terminal. The connection of the negative to the RS-485 terminal block is not actually necessary as the RJ-11/12 pin 5 GND connection is common.
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Do you mind sharing this here
Here are some pictures to powering the M5 Stack / RS-485 to the Water Heater board… works perfect!!!
Sneak peek (more pics in the github link)
As a bonus, the discord group for esphome econet gave me a tip on how to enable the led on the M5-Stack, so now I have customizable colors that can be changed based on alerts/health of the unit. I have it currently configured to use a blue slow pulse for a heartbeat
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Wondering if anybody can help with this Rheem Econet integration. I have two heat pump water heaters and have successfully used this awesome integration. Love it!
But here’s my problem…
Before the recent upgrade to ESPHome, I was able to concurrently integrate Rheem Econet to Home Assistant (HA) as well as to Hubitat. This was and is important for my setup because we use HA for dashboarding and Hubitat for automation. While I can integrate it to one platform, and pass it to the other, it’s simpler and better to integrate on both sides, where feasible (as it had been with this integration).
But since I believe v2024.3.2 of ESPHome, I can only get it integrated to one or the other. When I edit the device in HA, there is an “api:” section that specifies an encryption key. If I leave that in, HA works, but Hubitat doesn’t. If I take it out, Hubitat works, but HA doesn’t.
Is there anyway I can get both to work concurrently? Appreciate any pointers!
I was bummed to find the recommended (fully packaged) RS485 adapter has been discontinued. Anybody know of a similar alternative? M5 has a more robust unit available… but with shipping it is ~$70.
Here’s the recommended hardware
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It’s not discontinued they just changed the part number and separated the esp32 from the logic level converter part numbers.
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Gotcha. Bought a few after my awesome experience with this project. Next up either my Mitsubishi MrSlim or the cold plunge.
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Yup I use tons of M5stack Atomic modules, they’re awesome. They have equivalent CAN and RS232 ones also.